What is it like to become a genetic engineer?

[Docscientist]

What are the career prospects and are genetic engineers suitable for finding cure for diseases ? What is the greatest risk involved in being a genetic engineer and what are the advantages ?

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

What are the career prospects and are genetic engineers suitable for finding cure for diseases ? What is the greatest risk involved in being a genetic engineer and what are the advantages ?

I am no expert, but I've been told that the prospects of becoming a genetic engineer is really good (there was a time when I wanted to become a geneticist). Genetic engineers (obviously) study genetic material and DNA, which is pretty big considering that there are all those controversial issues with cloning, GMOs, and whatnot. However, the field is pretty diverse and you can work with a bunch of things including plants, animals, and microorganisms. I guess you could find cures for diseases in that field, too. Are there any risks in going into genetic engineering? I'm not so sure if you mean physically or career-wise. You have to deal with the basic lab materials, but that's nothing special.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Here's an article from Nature Medicine on the potential for using new genome editing tools (like CRISPR) to treat human disease:

Therapeutic genome editing: prospects and challenges http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v21/n2/abs/nm.3793.html